TechPowerUp's World Community Grid (WCG) team now ranks among the world's top 20, and it's all thanks to our awesome contributors, coordinated by team leader "ChickenPatty." TechPowerUp WCG team's goal, more than getting to the top is giving back benefits of powerful PC hardware to the world, which use idle system resources to process complex problems for the scientific community.

I've never understood how this worked. I can see my laptop idling like 99% of the time, I feel the need to harness its power for something constructive, but does this crunching actually makes a difference?

It sure is good. A fight to cure cancer, AIDS, and other large diseases! WCG now uses GPU work units and modern GPUs can out put quite a bit compared to the original CPU PPD. I was averaging around 6K a day with one 2600K at 4.5ghz, now with two 6950's, 5770, and a 2600K @ 4.5ghz I get around 54K PPD!!!

I've never understood how this worked. I can see my laptop idling like 99% of the time, I feel the need to harness its power for something constructive, but does this crunching actually makes a difference?

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Essentialy you install software called BOINC on your computer. Once you setup a WCG account it will receive work from the servers to work on any project you want it to. By default it will only run when your computer is idle, so as to not interfere with your computer use. It runs low priority so you could even let it "crunch" whilst you do other stuff.

TechPowerUp's World Community Grid (WCG) team now ranks among the world's top 20, and it's all thanks to our awesome contributors, coordinated by team leader "ChickenPatty." TechPowerUp WCG team's goal, more than getting to the top is giving back benefits of powerful PC hardware to the world, which use idle system resources to process complex problems for the scientific community.

I should join you guys. I used to boinc in the winter at my old house to partially heat my house. My computer did a better job and was cheaper than the floor board heating too. I think I used to do seti, some galaxy mapping thing, and something else. Now I have a i5 2500k at 4.5ghz and a 7970 to really push things along instead of a dual core athalon and 6950.

Great job Team! and don't forget guys and gals please feel free to join our Crunching team! All new members are welcome! All the information to get started can be found here. Also, don't forget our folding brothers! All the information to get start with them can be found here.

Great job Team! and don't forget guys and gals please feel free to join our Crunching team! All new members are welcome! All the information to get started can be found here. Also, don't forget our folding brothers! All the information to get start with them can be found here.

Thanks! So basically, if I get this right, a purpose built Super Computer can/will/does output more than an entire "personal" team? Is the coding/programming that inefficient or is there just so many calcs to be done? Assuming it's a sh!tload of calcs...

Thanks! So basically, if I get this right, a purpose built Super Computer can/will/does output more than an entire "personal" team? Is the coding/programming that inefficient or is there just so many calcs to be done? Assuming it's a sh!tload of calcs...

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Each thread gets a work unit (wu- small packets of work) to calculate and your output is based on how many of those threads are running and how fast they finish each wu.

Thanks! So basically, if I get this right, a purpose built Super Computer can/will/does output more than an entire "personal" team? Is the coding/programming that inefficient or is there just so many calcs to be done? Assuming it's a sh!tload of calcs...

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That's right. But one of the difficulties researchers have is scheduling or affording the costs of SuperComputer access.

World Community Grid was developed to provide humanitarian research access to an alternate compute source: regular PC's connected to a grid. As long as the research is humanitarian in nature and the results are made available small research teams can make use of this super computer time which they might not normally have had access to further their study.

I should join you guys. I used to boinc in the winter at my old house to partially heat my house. My computer did a better job and was cheaper than the floor board heating too. I think I used to do seti, some galaxy mapping thing, and something else. Now I have a i5 2500k at 4.5ghz and a 7970 to really push things along instead of a dual core athalon and 6950.

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If you jump in to WCG, you can rock some great numbers with that 7970. One card running multiple GPU work units might put in or near the top 10 on the team because the GPU work units run so much faster.